I love The New Forest Hampshire which is the next county over from where I live in Dorset: The Jutes were the last tribe in England to suffer forced conversion to xtianity. The Jutes on the Isle of Wight and Hampshire were invaded 3 times, mostly wiped out and replaced with colonists from Wessex and Mercia because they refused to convert.
Today Hampshire has, especially in the New Forest, the biggest concentration in England of place names for streams, hills, villages and woodlands etc that are named after the native Gods of the English. This shows us how committed the Jutes were to the Gods and how place names can be useful when studying the culture of our ancestors. There is a bog named after the God Woden, Hills named after a great Ash Tree, a small lake named after Woden that is now only a stream and a village named after the Goddess Frigga as a few examples from the top of my head. The old name for what is now called the New Forest was Forest of 'Ytene', which means 'The Forest of the Jutes'.

Reconstruction of the Thornborough Henges by Simon Edwards. Built 5000 years ago in Thornborough, North Yorkshire, England, the alignment of the henges mirror the three stars of Orion’s belt. Furthermore, a ditch that ran through the site pointed west to where the Orion constellation set on the horizon during the autumn months.

Ræd sceal mon secgan, rune writan, leoþ gesingan, lofes gearnian.

One should speak counsel, write runes, sing poems, earn praise.

Old English maxim from the Book of Exeter.

An Anglo Saxon noblewoman’s grave goods, containing an amulet made of a beaver’s tooth.

The 8th Century poet Aldhelm’s Enigma claimed that beavers “destroy pestilence and the deadly plague”; this amulet may have sought to invoke the hardiness and longevity of the beaver.

The Anglo Saxon Iar rune, similar to the Hagal rune in the Younger Futhark, which is described as a “sickness of serpents” in the Icelandic Rune Poem, has been proposed to represent the beaver in the Anglo Saxon Futhorc.

“Iar byþ eafix and ðeah a bruceþ
fodres on foldan, hafaþ fægerne eard
wætre beworpen, ðær he wynnum leofaþ.”

“Iar is a river fish and yet it always feeds on land;
it has a fair abode encompassed by water, where it lives in happiness.”
~Anglo Saxon Rune Poem
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We usually assume the first humans, Ask and Embla refer to (the trees) Ash and Elm, however the root of Embla is open to question. Gunlög Josefsson suggests Embla meant 'firemaker’. Woden gave Ash and Embla life through his divine breath, not unlike blowing life into a dying fire, giving life to Ash and Embers.

In the Old English rune poem, the verse for the æsc (ash) rune describes ‘men’ (mankind) using term firas, which comes from the Germanic word *firhwijaz which means a ‘living person’. What is interesting is that the root of this word comes from *ferhuz, itself meaning ‘life, body’ but also ‘tree’, especially ‘oak’ where it is suggested that the Germanic word *ferhuz may have come from *pérkus meaning oak. In the Old English rune poem, we find the runes Oak and Ash besides each other – perhaps reminiscent of the first people who, carved from the trunks of trees were given life (breath) by the gods.

Thor the Wind-raiser and the Eyrarland Image. An academic paper on the imagery of Thor holding his beard.

It’s the full moon tonight (11.14pm for us in England) and its another supermoon, where the moon is closer to the Earth and appears larger in the sky. It is the last full moon before the solstice but also the blot-moon - depending on which calendar you use. I own a few different heathen calendars and they all suggest something different, however I think the ‘why’ we give blot is sometimes more important than the ‘when’. So as usual on the full moon, my family hearth will honour the gods, our ancestors and the land wights.

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: England, the land that I love, that I'm devoted to.

It's so easy to become wrapped up within the seemingly all encompassing maelstrom of our current times & situation. But, although it seems so, this is nothing new.
So, each day take time to remember; the beauty that is there, the power in the soil, the stunning landscape & the remarkable history it holds. There's not a inch of land that can't tell a tale.
One of the core reasons I love this land so, is because of its pure endurance, reliance & down right stubbornness when faced against hardship & tyranny. England is tattered, battered, bloodied, scarred & the soil is soaked in blood & I wouldn't have it any other way. The true English are proud of that, carry the heritage in their hearts & laugh in the face of it.

These current times will one day be another chip on its blade, a dent in its amour & stitches upon its tapestry. You, are a part of that.
England, oh England.
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The OE *Hræfngod (Raven-god) and ON Hrafnagud are bynames for Woden, who is also known by the ON name hrafnfreistaðar meaning Raven-tester. An OE kenning for Raven was Wælceásiga, meaning Chooser of the Slain.

Woden pendant by Valgaut.

One of the figures who supposedly led the Wild Hunt was ‘Old Nick’. In English lore, Old Nick or Old Harry was said to be the devil. However I doubt this was the christian devil but a demonised heathen god, namely Woden. The church often referred to our gods as demons, the Old Saxon Baptismal Vow names Thunor, Woden and Seaxnot and their followers as devils.

The name Nick may well be connected to Woden’s name of Hnikarr. The name Harry has Norman origins but the English word harry comes from herġian meaning army and scholars including Rudolf Simek suggest this is connected to the (ein)herjar which included the followers of the Wild Hunt.

The Alpine goddess Frau Perchta is known by many names including Berchta, Bertha, Berhta as well as the noscript ‘the White Lady’. She is likely an aspect of Frīg and we find cognates to Berhta in the OE names Berþa and Berhte which both mean ‘the bright one’.

Artist unknown.

Jölfaðr or Yule-father is a byname used by Woden.

The Silver Birch at Slinde (Sogn Og Fjordane, Norway) was regarded sacred and no one was allowed to cut any branch from it. It fell in 1874 but prior to that the local farmer would pour ale over the roots of the tree every yule, in a ritual similar to the English custom of wassailing.

Painting - Thomas Fearnley's Old Birch Tree at the Sognefjord,1839

"Odin and two of his Ulfhedinn companions" by Valhyr on Instagram.